Mark Pierson

Increasingly Random and Personal Reflections on Travel in the USA August 2006.

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 13:11:59 +1000

In late 2005 the Urban Seed Board granted me leave for the month of August 2006. My intention was to take a break and renew my energy and creativity by going to the Greenbelt Arts Festival in England and then hanging out with friends in the UK for a few weeks.

Last Post

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:22:36 +1000

I thought I should wind this ‘pseudo blog’ up properly. This is likely to be my final entry. You can follow further developments under Marcus’s writings at http://www.urbanseed.org/journal/mt/mc/index.html We’ll be moving all our church/spirituality/worship/mission stuff to a new website soon.

At a meeting of the core group of Urban Seed church after worship on Sunday 8 April, 15 adults and two children stayed out of the 20 + 2 who were at worship that night! Not a bad core group. At that meeting I explained that due to my difficult personal circumstances I wasn’t able to continue to provide leadership at the level I had been doing for the previous 12 months. In fact I needed to take a complete break, and as no one else was willing to take it on, it was likely that we would shut up shop.

An intuitive introverts guide... 20.

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:30:47 +1000

It hasn't been an easy year so far. I'm finding myself much more weary and running out of steam more often than I am used to or anticipated. Some external pressures have sucked the life out of me in the last few months. So I'm having to take a bit of a break from working with and even attending, Urban Seed church for a while. So I have nothing more to report on our progress (or regress!) at this stage. Marcus wil be holding it together for a while. Thanks Mark.

An intuitive introverts guide... 19.

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 21:14:47 +1000

February 05 2006.
We’re back after a good break. I don’t feel refreshed at all. I did get some writing done on my Masters, which feels good. Sadly, due to external pressures I have had to cancel the Stations of the Cross installation planned for Holy Week. We had booked a fabulous venue in a public place and it was looking good. But it’s not to be. Maybe next year. I’m very disappointed.

An intuitive introverts guide... 18.

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 21:07:55 +1000

As the year comes to an end, and we look back over it and wonder what lies ahead, I’ve been reading some of the comments that have come in over the last few weeks. I’ve left them just as they were sent, all as part of emails, some as part response to questions asked by the Baptist Union of Victoria who gave us some money...

An intuitive introverts guide ... 17.

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 21:04:01 +1000

Last week we sent out a couple of hundred copies of our Advent in Art postcards. This is the fifth year I’ve done these. I get 4 people from our church community to choose a piece of art from any time in history – although I prefer non-contemporary works that are more representational than conceptual. I then arrange them in roughly the order of the Christmas story and write a reflection and a ritual to go with each week. The art, biblical text, reflection and ritual are printed in colour on postcards and the sets packagaged and given out to our community and other people to use during Advent. We put our ones in a nice purple envelope.

An intuitive introverts guide...16.

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 05:33:28 +1000

November 06
Parable of the ‘silly and the smart’ virgins tonight. 25th Ordinary Sunday. It felt like it too.
No records remain of what we did. I can’t even find my running order.

November 13
Rachel did a very cool Call to Worship using illustrations she’d torn out of very old children’s Bibles (the Bibles were old, not the children), and handwritten Bible text quotes.
Marcus spoke about Colossians 1 using some of Brian Walsh’s targum stuff from ‘Colossians Remixed’. Excellent book.
6 adults. Very cosy. Not a bad service tho.

November 20
Christ the King Sunday. A good time to review the year past. It’s been a long one. We hung the ‘church year clothesline’ and looked at where this Sunday fits in that year. Played some tracks from the new Pitch Black album. Nice stuff. Also used Van Morrisons ‘Ancient of Days’. A good fit. I forgot to record the number of punters, but there weren’t many of us.

(This column also appears at www.sacramentis.com )

An intuitive introverts guide... 15.

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 19:55:58 +1000

Well, it’s been a pretty quite few weeks of ‘steady as she goes’ so not much to write about, just the usual ups and downs that a depressed, melancholic cynic gets used to. Here's the last few weeks...

An intuitive introverts guide...14 World Vision Staff Day Worship

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:56:37 +1000

This was the other event that brought me back early from Blackstump. A couple of months ago I was asked to put together worship for 350 World Vision Australia staff at their annual Staff Day. This is part of an international day of prayer by the World Vision Partnership.

I don’t like doing ‘exhibition’ worship and would normally have declined this kind of invitation, but a friend asked me to do it, and the resourcing was unusually good!

It was obvious that some kind of stations based worship was what I would do. Some parameters arose early on in the planning – the venue wouldn’t allow use of any candles or flames, so no incense either, and it was too small to get all 350 staff in at one time so two ‘sittings’ would be necessary.

An intuitive introverts guide...13 Blackstump Music and Arts Festival.

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:53:44 +1000

Six Urban Seeders went up to Campbelltown for this gig. We did six events between us and spent a lot of time talking with people about Urban Seed, mission, spirituality, emerging church and so on.
I led my usual seminar on the labyrinth (surely after five years of my doing it someone else should be able to by now?) which was well attended. I enjoyed doing it. I also curated one of the seven Sunday morning worship choices. Having done your typical alt. worship for the last six or seven years this time I stripped it right back and used elements of Urban Seed worship from the various gatherings we have through each week.

An intuitive introverts guide...12 What’s in a name?

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:51:48 +1000

I had an interesting and stimulating email from a friend in the USA today. He wanted to talk about the value or not of having a name for a new community of faith that he is part of.
John wrote…
“One discussion we’ve had (and are still having) is what to call our church. Just because churches ALWAYS have names, I suggested we DON’T have a name. (at least not until we’ve examined what interests a name serves).

An intuitive introverts guide to starting a church 11.

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:48:17 +1000

25 September, 2005.
This has been a big month for us. Dave Tomlinson (The Post-evangelical, Holy Joe’s, Vicar, London) was with us tonight. He spoke gorgeously about meeting God in the ordinary things of life. 27 adult punters turned up. While Urban Seed church will never be about having a succession of high profile preachers advertised to pull in the crowds, the advantage of us having people like Dave through is that it gives us something to promote on the back of. It’s a bit more difficult to advertise an ‘ordinary Sunday’, although we do.

Lost comment

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:52:41 +1000

Hi, someone (a woman in the UK? I think) posted a comment on Monday 19 September. Before I could approve it the comment was lost in a hail of spam. If that was you, would you please repost. Thanks,
Mark

An intuitive introverts guide ... 10.

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:20:13 +1000

28 August, 2005.
Brother Roger at Taize was recently stabbed and Marcus (who is good at picking this stuff up) wove Taize songs and a tribute to Brother Roger and radical discipleship through the worship. Eventually 6 adults and 2 children fronted up. Is this sustainable in its current form? Am I sustainable in my current form?

04 September, 2005.
15 adults, including 2 visitors tonight. Trickled in. It felt good (in the end).

An intuitive introverts guide... 9.

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 07:51:48 +1000

‘Forgive me father for I have sinned. It’s been 5 weeks since my last confession…’
The last few weeks at Urban Seed church have been ones of consolidation with not a lot of new stuff happening. The order of service seems to be shaking down OK and people are contributing well. There has been a lot of discussion outside of services about where Urban Seed church fits with the rest of the Urban Seed organization, and about what we hope the future of the church will be.